Executives from CCCC's international division had flown to Canada to meet staff. But mindful that the Canadians might be anxious about a Chinese takeover, they had asked Barr to spend a week in Toronto discussing John Holland's experience as a division of CCCC with Aecon's staff and clients.

"The Chinese were astute enough to say, 'John, can you come over for a week and just talk about the experience that you have had'," Barr says in an interview with AFR Weekend. "So I just relayed that fundamentally, it's been a good growth story for us."

At a time when Chinese ownership of Australian companies and properties is stirring up tension, Barr says John Holland's experience of being part of a Chinese conglomerate has been "liberating".

Advertisement

Related Quotes

One of Australia's oldest construction companies, John Holland was founded in 1949 and sold to Janet Holmes à Court's Heytesbury Pty Ltd in 1991. A decade later, Leighton Holdings acquired majority control and John Holland became one of three key divisions, along with Thiess and Leighton Contractors. In early 2014, Leighton was bought by Spanish company Grupo ACS and subsequently renamed CIMIC.

The Spanish, who fired Leighton's Australian management team and brought in their own executives, sold John Holland to CCCC at the end of 2014 to raise cash, giving the Chinese a solid foothold in the Australian construction industry.

Barr was running Melbourne-based building group Hansen Yuncken﻿ when he was first approached by CCCC about two years ago. He flew to Beijing for meetings with the Chinese group's executives.

"Each boss that I spoke to talked to me about culture," Barr recalls. "They told me that they had bought an Australian company and that they wanted to keep it an Australian company ... they didn't want to destroy value."

Barr is acutely aware of how a company's culture affects how it does business, having spent two years working for Dubai property developer Nakheel in the late 2000s.

"Dubai was a very, very challenging place ... transparency is not big on the agenda, even from an office style point of view – they had closed door offices everywhere and things were quite secretive, the left hand never knew what the right hand was doing."

The Chinese understand local knowledge is needed to develop strong relationships with customers and suppliers, Barr says. "I asked them: 'Why buy [John Holland], why not grow organically?' And they said: 'We sort of tried, but it's never going to work'."

CCCC, which is owned by the Chinese government and has been listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange since 2006, has a market capitalisation of $38 billion and is the world's fourth largest global contractor, according to Engineering News Record (CIMIC owner ACS ranks seventh.)

John Holland is part of CCCC's international division, which was established in 2012 and is run out of Hong Kong.

When Barr met Sun ZiYu, CCCC's chief engineer, during the interview process, he was handed a book covered in gold paper, The Governing Principles of Ancient China. The book contains excerpts from thousands of years of political thinking, including advice on leadership and making decisions, that were compiled during the era of Emperor Taizong (599-649.)

"The person who handed me this book said that I will do well by learning more about ancient Chinese history because it would help me understand their culture," says Barr.

Since being acquired by CCCC, John Holland has won billions of dollars of new infrastructure contracts, and is part of consortiums building different parts of the Sydney Metro, including tunnels under Sydney Harbour and the northwest rail link, as well as the Melbourne Metro and Melbourne's new West Gate Tunnel.

Barr, who joined as CEO in November 2016 and replaced Glenn Palin, says that John Holland wouldn't have been able to bid on and build so many projects if it didn't have the support of the deep-pocketed Chinese. "They bring the funds backed with the desire to grow.

"We're not constrained by a short-term view on the world, in fact it's a super-long term view," he explains. "They think in generations."

John Holland, which generated about $3.4 billion in revenues this year, expects to increase revenues to more than $4 billion in 2018. Profits, which were running at $47 million in 2016, are also expected to rise despite having to sort out claims with the Western Australian government over its problem project, the Perth Children's Hospital, where disputes continue over the source of lead contamination in water pipes.

As well as taking on more projects, the John Holland is diversifying, establishing a development and investments business to push further into the property market and broaden the range of services it provides to its clients.

The president of CCCC's international business, Lu Jianzhong, travels to Australia three to four times a year to keep an eye on John Holland. Barr describes Lu as "very inquisitive" and says he's curious about Australian customs.

"We went to an AFL football game in Sydney when the premier of China [Li Keqiang] came out [in March]. So there we are in a box with Malcolm Turnbull and all the bodyguards around the place.

"I was saying to him: 'You need to decide who to go for.' It was Port Adelaide versus Sydney Swans. So being very diplomatic he's wearing two scarfs ... and absolutely loving it."

But Lu – who is known as "Prez Lu" by John Holland staffers – has remained fairly hands off, with John Holland's management team staying Australian. But the company's executives have had classes to learn more about Chinese culture, including how meetings are conducted (the Chinese are less likely to interject during presentations than Australians.)

Although Lu, who has worked for CCCC for more than 30 years, speaks good English, other Chinese executives are less fluent. The Chinese company is also "super sensitive" to appearances, says Barr. "They understand that what they bought is fundamentally a company with a great Australian legacy."

While John Holland and CCCC have discussed exchange programs for staff in China and Australia, they have not progressed beyond some Chinese engineers coming out to look at designs for Australian projects, says Barr.

But when CCCC completes its acquisition of Aecon, which is a similar size to John Holland, Barr expects to swap ideas with the Canadian group. ﻿

Lu has won favour with John Holland's local management by approving measures to encourage gender diversity and erase pay gaps, as well as permitting flexible working practices and bringing back staff recognition awards after the Spanish "took away some things that were precious to the culture," Barr says.